Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was touring the northern province of Mazandaran, was attacked with a pair of shoes by a sacked labourer of a factory, according to a local website.
Although the president ducked the leather missiles, the people who were present in the session assaulted the launcher and beat him up, Ghased News reported. “If the police was not present, nobody knows what would have happened to him,” the site reported.
The former textile worker is said to have a track record in president-thrashing. According to Ghased News, he threw a tomato at the ex-President Mohammad Khatami when he was visiting Sari during his presidency.
The attacker, only identified as Rashid Sh., has reportedly not received a salary for the past year.
Throwing shoes at politicians is a form of protest seen most commonly in the Arab world and recent victims include George W. Bush, when an Iraqi journalist voiced his protest through his footwear.
